Upcycled sea turtle rattle

I made this for my friend who had a "herp" themed baby shower. Herps are reptiles and amphibians, not herpes. I was trying to think about how to make it rattle (Easter egg glued shut with rice in it? Some crumply wax paper?) and then just decided to stuff it with an old soft rattle/sock thing we've had lying around the house from baby days. So basically I took a rattle and made it into a larger rattle. That counts as upcycling, right?? I had to do a honu because it was the best (only?) native Hawaiian reptile. And a gecko seemed too complicated and they aren't native anyway.  I just sort of made it up, so who knows if I'll ever be able to recreate it. Here's the bottom:

Rainbow fish costume

I made this out of redirected nesting hormones when I was pregnant with number two. Number one requested it and I went a little crazy. 

Fairy dolls

Granny square ball

The tiny garden

Here's our veggie garden, in a baby pool. Radishes, chard, broccoli, peas, green onions and catnip. 

That was a few weeks ago, now we've picked most of the radishes and everything's bigger. 

And now, a few weeks later again. Peas are here!

Crochet stitch: bumpy stripes

My daughter wanted to name this stitch "spring beauty" but I wanted "mister grumpy stripes." She rolled her eyes and went back to her fort on the deck. I came up with it after making a baby blanket with the basketweave stitch, which seems daunting at first but is actually very simple. I looked around and couldn't find anyone who had also invented it, but if I'm wrong let me know! Here it is:

I think it's pretty nice from the back, too. 

All you need to know is single crochet and double crochet. Start out making your chain and single crochet back across it. Chain 1, and sc. 

Then dc, just like in a basketweave stitch:

And repeat.  Once you get the the end of the row, chain one, turn, and either single crochet if you're in a "dip" or do the double crochet from the back, like this 

Pull through and finish your double crochet. 

 

This is my first tutorial so sorry if it's a bit vague... Let me know if it is!

Bunnies have a new hutch!

After many months of almost getting to it, the husband buckled down and built the rabbit hutch he's been planning for so long.  Not moment too soon either, since our new angora rabbit had immediately punched a hole in the floor of the old hutch so big she could stick her head through it.  Not really the kind of animal husbandry we were aiming for. But she only had to rough it for a day, and then got moved to this beauty:

That's her on the far left. The other three are the New Zealand meat rabbits we've had for a few years now.   After two disastrous litters from our doe (resulting in a grand total of two stillbirths and one survivor), I got discouraged and we started just using them for their manure.  Rabbit manure is amazing as a fertilizer, and rabbit pee is great for the compost pile. Our plan was to have corrugated plastic roofing under the hutch, ramping down to a gutter to catch everything. Then we ran out of money. So here's our set-up for now: 

Nice heavy duty plastic on the ground, weighted down with the aforementioned gutter and... some rocks. I put the straw down to catch the pee and I add it to the compost pile when it gets nice and gross. Here comes the amazing compost pile picture!

I bothered to take the picture so I figured I'd use it. Every day I gather up the straw, then scoop up the poop with a spade and add it to my "tea," which is poop in water. Delicious, I know, and at first I was just adding the poop directly to my plants, like this baby pomegranate: 

But if you make the tea, the nutrients in the manure will be much more readily available to your plants.  The tea needs to be aerated or it will turn rotten and kill your roots, but that's another post.